Escape from Munich

Mr. Pimpl rolled his eyes and sighed again at our request.

"Yah, und I have zee times fur Lausanne," he said, "and Basel, and Zurich, and Bern."

We nodded solemnly and looked blankly at each other: let's get the hell out of Munich. As far as cities go, Munich was one of the most expensive we'd been to, not good for two twenty-three year olds who were still wearing clothes they owned in the 9th grade. I liked Bavaria, Brett thinks Bavaria is the greatest thing since Bach's Branderburg Concerto, and we both like beer, but c'mon: 5 bucks for a pretzel? I don't even get mustard!

We thanked Pimpl, a balding man in his 60s with round glasses and a long face. He grunted behind the DeutscheBahn ticket window and we disappeared into the train station. After 4 hours of looking for a train, bus or plane to Lausanne to be with Aunt Kate, we were stuck in Munich for another night.

Being stuck in the world capital of great beer isn't a bad thing, just expensive. We made the mistake of eating on the square near Marienplatz in the downtown area: 45 euros for dinner, please.

we ended up staying the night in an A&O hostel, a chain of hostels that provides cheap lodging for obnoxious schoolchildren all over europe. Our neighbor was a college student from Arkansas, Katie, who had been studying in Salzburg for a month.

We booked a train to Lausanne for the next morning at 7 and called my Aunt Kate, who lives on Lake Geneva in Switzerland to let her know, and then we wandered into a local Hungarian restaurant. We drank litres of beer while eating sausages and cheesy spaetzel. We talked philosophy until the sun went down and walked along the Marienplatz. A small band of a violin, cello, flute and trumpet played 'Ave Maria' near the subway for passersby. We walked back to the dorm exhausted, and collapsed into our bunks before our train the next morning.